


Loss

by Madilayn



Series: Prompt Fics [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 03:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4247556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madilayn/pseuds/Madilayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First in the fic prompts.  For Icegirl2772 said:<br/>Scott. Thunderbirds Are Go 2015. Loss. (Like when Jeff first disappeared or first life lost in a rescue.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss

It was a feeling he knew all too well. That heaviness on his chest, like breath being squeezed out of him. The blackness in his mind that threatened to envelop his life. That feeling like you will never smile again.

Sometimes, he can throw it off faster than others. He’s learned to deal with the feeling of loss all his life. 

His first memory of loss was when his father had to leave for one of his duty tours. He soon learned that when daddy left, he would be gone for months. Mommy tried to be happy, but he could feel her sadness, and even though he was still a baby, he can remember that loss, because it was repeated so often. 

That loss was always in the back of his mind growing up. 

And then there was his first experience of the blackness of loss. When Mom was killed, the black weight pressing on him, the feeling of despair. How could they go on, when even Dad was struck down. He could still feel that loss when he and his brothers were taken away from Dad, separated with no knowledge of when or if they would be together again.

It had been that second loss, plus the relief when Grandma had stepped in to save them that had helped him push through the loss of Mom, to become the big brother that his younger brothers needed. 

Loss of innocence can come in many ways; however it can also bring a new beginning. Scott remembers every second of his loss of childhood innocence. He remembered being at his father’s home – their old family home – undergoing some testing for an early entry into the Air Force Cadet program. That day, he had come home from the final day, elated because he had been told that he had passed all the testing and would be fast tracked to early entry. 

Coming home to find his father and his latest woman passed out drunk, naked, in the living room. The stench of vomit in the air as well as other evidence of his activities made him realise that his father was not some super human being, but only a flawed human like all the rest of them.

He could still feel the tears of shame that he shed as he had to clean up his father, get him up the stairs to bed. Trying to clean up the lounge room, only to find her awake. Watching him. And then that other loss, and always regretting not the loss but the manner of it. 

The beginning, however, as his father, stumbling downstairs came across them, and father’s reaction to knowledge of what had happened.

No – no regret for that loss, as it had given them back Father. The Father that they had all come to love deeply. For Scott, however, there was always in the back of his mind that his father was a flawed human, and it made him able to question him, to be able to stand for his own decisions. 

He lost his career. He knew why he gave it up, but it still hurt, and he still felt that bone crushing loss as he gave up something he had been working towards since he was ten. He had already been touted as being a better pilot than his father. Scott Tracy felt, in his achievements in his career, that he had stepped out of the shadow of Jeff Tracy and become his own man. The loss of that hurt. Especially since, in the future, he knew that what he did would have to remain secret. Instead, he would be publically known as just another man who was the offspring of an extremely wealthy parent, not doing anything himself, living of his father’s achievements. 

His brothers knew, though, and it helped that loss that they were all working together. And working together helped his next loss.

It was another crushing one - the feeling of loss when you know that despite all you have done, you could not save people. All five brothers were affected by it, all five wondering if there was something that they could have done to prevent it. Scott forced himself to work through the loss, to provide comfort to his younger brothers, to re-assure them that they had done all they could. 

Scott learned through his life to put loss behind him, to subdue it into what else he needed to do. There were those who thought that the Field Commander of International Rescue was a cold, hard man. He knew that there were those who wondered how such a man could be part of such a compassionate organisation. 

But he didn’t care what they thought. He had to present that façade, or he would fall apart. Not even his father saw the agony, the crushing blackness that he lived with every day.

Only his brothers saw the fallout, were there to pick up the pieces of Scott. Virgil always got the worst, his almost psychic connection to his older brother meant he knew first when Scott was about to crack completely. He provided the strong shoulder that Scott could lean on until his crisis had passed. John was the comforting ear, whether present or not, he could tell John anything. 

Gordon and Alan, his much loved baby brothers, joked about as the “afterthoughts” but loved no less, provided a different sort of strength. Gordon knew from his own experience what Scott had given up in his career. But both he and Alan idolised their oldest brother nonetheless. 

Scott knew this, and he tried to meet their expectations, because to seem them loose that look of absolute confidence and love when they looked at him would be the hardest loss of all.

Until now.

Scott Tracy raised his head from his arms, his eyes reddened as they had not been for many years. Why was it that now, when the secrecy about International Rescue had been exploded, when he could now hold his head up and be who he truly was, could this have happened.

He exited Thunderbird One. Loss was heavy in his body, but he had to step forward. He knew the loss that they were all facing. But he also knew that they could not let this particular loss overwhelm them. 

International Rescue was more than something built by their father. It was the legacy that both of their parents had left them. Built in memory of mom, and now their father was lost to them as well.  
His steps firmed as he walked to the lounge and he let out a piercing whistle, the one he had used for as long as he could remember that would tell his younger brothers that he needed them. 

They would carry on. Loss was the burden they bore, but loss could be turned into a force to move forward. 

The loss was there, would always be there, and it would spur them on. Because otherwise, it would crush them.


End file.
